Theme and Topics

Theme

Mobile software engineering presents new challenges and directions. Among others, we observe the following new areas of interest:

Creation, deployment, and management of a suite of applications for multiple heterogeneous devices (phones, tablets, laptops from a variety of manufacturers) that connect securely to enterprise back-end servers.

Stretching the boundaries of native applications using web technologies.

Ensuring a uniform user experience across platforms.

Battery life. How can developers write software that uses up as little battery life as possible, and what place does the Cloud play in preserving battery life?

Supporting migration of existing legacy applications to mobile.

Mobile security. With the advanced networking capabilities of mobile devices and the sensitive data stored on them, new ways of addressing vulnerabilities from both the web browser and operating system must be considered.

Programming approach. There is a new wave of programming languages and environments that actually work on the mobile devices themselves, and take advantage of the different modes of input such as touch and pen.

Testing and verification approach. As mobile ecosystems evolve, there is a need of new technologies and practices to assure the quality of application and services.

Applications that really make use of the mobility and power of the devices we currently have can still be explored, for education, social issues, gaming, productivity and systems.

Topics

The topics include, but are not limited to:

Mobile development environments and tools

Testing and verification in mobile ecosystems

Agile development for mobile applications

Empirical studies and metrics

Maintenance and evolution

Mobile patterns, frameworks, and product lines

Mobile software refactoring, restructuring, and renovation

Mobile program transformation and optimization

Practice and experience reports

Management of mobile applications

User experience of mobile applications

Hybrid versus native applications

Model-driven development for mobile

Application security

Mobile operating system and middleware security

Secure application development

Cloud support for mobile security

Static and dynamic analysis of mobile applications

Mobile optimization debugging techniques and tools

Research challenges in mobile software engineering

Mobile and touch-oriented programming languages

Programming languages using innovative input mechanisms

Programming environments on or for mobile devices

Teaching of programming on or for mobile devices

Libraries and programming frameworks that simplify programming for mobile devices